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Monday, 29 April 2013

After a few successful mini trades, I have decided to post up a load of miniatures that I am willing to shift.The range deals with figures from 3rd and 4th edition Warhammer and is mainly focused on Chaos, though there is some undead and other bits in there. I am primarily interested in trading models rather than selling, which is why the models are not listed on eBay. Support the Oldhammer Community first is my motto. I am interested in anything human, and have published some catalogue pages after my stuff to show you want I am mainly after. I am also after some Chaos Dwarfs if ypu have any to trade.

Okay, lets have a look at what I have to trade with shall we?

Set 1: Chaos Champions of Khorne as well was a sneaky Nurgle champion and the Marauder Beastmaster. CHAMPION 2 and 8 TRADED

Set 2: Chaos beastmen, and a thug. MODELS 1 2 3 4 and 6 TRADED!

Set 3: More beastmen, chaos warriors, a female thug and a Marauder Knight. BEASTMAN 1 TRADED!

Observant readers may well have noticed that I have changed my email address. Hotmail has converted to Outlook and I hate it. I've changed to Yahoo, though I will still check the old one from time to time. It seems that people are emailing me and the messages are not getting delivered, so enough is enough.

So my new address is realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk. So email me if you have things to trade.

Okay, here is what I'd like to trade for...

Email Orlygg at realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk if you want to trade.

Yes, I am planning an old school Empire Army after my Khorne one is complete.

Sunday, 28 April 2013

I found myself re-reading the Wargames Illustrated interview with Bryan Ansell recently, and dwelling on Steve Casey's photographs of the great man's miniature collection. The general consensus online is pleasant relief that so many of the 80s models that we know and love still exist. And that many of us are very excited about actually seeing them at some point in the future.

In doing so, I was reminded that the cover of the first edition of Warhammer, the actual painting that is, resides in a toilet in Stoke Hall - Bryan's home. This got me wondering about the cover paintings from other notable publications of the 80s and early 90s. Where are they now?

There are some obvious answers to some of these questions. I can infer that the covers to the two Realm of Chaos books are still at GW Lenton, as the art is still used on their products, the cover to The Lost and the Damned being used for The Palace of the Plague Lord for example.

But what of others?

Where is the cover to WFB3 itself?

Or Warhammer Armies for that matter?

Or Ian Miller's cover to Warhammer Siege?

Unlike the covers to the Chaos books, I have not seen these covers used for anything else. So where are they? Destroyed? Back with the artists? Sold to collectors? And what of other covers? Heroquest? Bloodbowl? Skeleton Army?

Now I know that this blog has a large lurking readership. Nearly 80,000 page views in the last few months is a lot of mouseclicks, or tablet taps... I also know that many Veterans of Citadel/GW also mooch around here. Some of you must know something about the locations, or indeed fates, of famous cover paintings from this era.

From time to time I come across a choice site of Old School Citadel goodness and I feel its my duty to get the work of little known collectors some wider exposure. Leadplague is one such victim. His blog is packed with classic Citadel miniatures, from both Rogue Trader and Warhammer Fantasy Battle, as well as more recent releases. He seems to favour the work of Jes Goodwin (and why not?) and has that rare ability to convert plastic kits into vibrant models.

Don't believe me?

Follow this link and find out more. Don't forget to follow his blog too. He's been going since January this year and has yet to find the audience he deserves.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Hey, here's a first! An article in my series about the history of Warhammer Third Edition when we have the actual issue available online to read through. I found this copy on Scribd, and thanks must go to Ryan for publishing this on the site. Well, issue 103 continued the Dark Future theme of imposing vehicle hurtling down a post-apocalyptic highway, only this time the painting was by Jim Burns. The issue continued the tradition of printing extracts from Realm of Chaos (extracts that I have not included in this history, as there are largely identical to those published later in Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned), more detail for Bloodbowl and Dark Future and a wealth of other stuff. Feel free to have a browse through the issue before reading my commentary about the Warhammer releases.

One of the Warhammer highlights of the issue is this advert for the forthcoming Warhammer Armies (see my next post for my retro-review of this controversial book) that uses Chris Collingwood's classic cover painting as its basis. The advert contains a little detail about what to expect in the new supplement; namely new rules for daemonic summoning, new creatures and war machines a plenty. As a little related taster, one of the Warhammer releases that month were the Chaos Dwarf War Machines - the Tenderiser and the Whirlwind.

As is typical during this period of White Dwarf, the article about the war machines begins with a little piece of narrative fluff related the the models. Sadly, this piece of throwaway fiction if far superior to the writing published in today's WD, or indeed many of the Black Library 'novels'. But as Rick Priestley has told us here at Realm of Chaos 80s, the studio staff were a fairly literate bunch back in the day and amusing little background pieces like this were knocked out with regular aplomb. As you'd expect, the tone of the piece is more light-hearted and self aware than the po-faced GrImDaRkTM of more recent times.

Kev Walker provides a rather evocative, if simplistic, illustration of the Tenderiser in action which helps the viewer imagine just what one of these war machines would do to a packed rank or two of chaos thugs. Underneath, we have a detailed diagram of the different pieces to the war machines, just in case, I suppose, you had difficulty putting them together.

The article goes on to provide full rules and a Warhammer Armies list box detailing all you need to know to field these bizarre machines. And, as far as I know, this issue is the only place that these rules were ever published. Now I won't critique the rules here, I leave that to you. Read them, indulge them (maybe even try them out if you own the models - which I don't sadly, but I would very much like too, so if you have any rolling around I love to hear from you) but don't expect balance or fairness with what is published here. In the '80s, that was up to you and your opponent and it wasn't necessary to attempt to hardwire it into rules mechanic.

Above we have the colour examples of the Tenderiser and the Whirlwind. I love these paint jobs! The green and orange faces really give the models a daemonic edge. And even today, with all the range and versatility of wargames figures, especially those in the fantasy genre, I have yet to see something this bizarre. After all, these machines are handcarts loaded up with whips, chains and massive hammers pushed along by a cross between a dwarf and a bull. Still, you could be looking at a fair price to pay for these classic models. I've seen individuals go for £30 on a good day (if you are a seller) and less than a tenner if its a bad day (again, if you are a seller) so they are obviously 'miniature marmite' to some people.

And I thought the '60s were inspired by #ahem# natural substances!

Tacked on the end, we have nine 'proper' orcs sculpted by the Goblin Master himself, Kevin Adams. These ones were designed to fit the then new plastic crossbows (and they are a bugger to find on eBay now) rather than being part of the model. Perhaps a forerunner to what came later, true multi-part metal/plastic figures, for Kevin Adams' early '90s RT orks were the first in a long line of miniatures with plastic arms and weapons. I haven't seen many of these models on-line these days, nor do they turn up much on painted forums or blogs, or at least not seen by me, so I cannot state how rare these greenskins are today.

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Issue 102 hit newsagents with the sound of a heavily laden renegade class pursuit vehicle colliding with a stainless steel girder. Dark Future, the game of highway warriors, was finally released onto the gaming world. That game, and its associated releases is part of one of my other long term projects, and will, one day, be resurrected. Today, we will be discussing the Warhammer Third Edition releases from this issue, so lets sit back and enjoy a slice of retro Warhammer at its best.

First up, and the major article of the issue, the Fimir. Now, way back when in the early days of this blog I published a link to this excellent article and discussed the nature of the Fimir in the context of Warhammer Third Edition. I see no reason to repeat myself, but the online world has moved on and it is now possible to embed items onto blogs, so I present the article again in this form.

So what do we get?

Well first off, a little bit of narrative fluff that sets up the premise of the new race well. Mists, horror and hideousness. The article moves on to deliver a Warhammer Armies style armylist and a detailed WFRP adventure. This is a really good article and is well worth a read if you haven't seen it before. The art is also excellent, with some evocative pictures provided by Paul Bonner.

Next up is an 'Eavy Metal article deals with that old chestnut, faces. As well as some interesting old school painting advice, there are a great deal of quality miniatures to gawp at, including the famous Dwarf wizard and many other rare models, including an early glimpse at some, then, forthcoming daemonettes. The eye candy ends with a rather wordy discussion about how to get the best out of a miniature's face.

Then we have these crossbowmen. At first flick through the magazine its easy to miss these little shooty chaps. What we get is a set of sculpts, based on the same dollies, that provide troops for Imperial and Bretonnian armies. Anyone know if these models are now part of Foundry's ever expanded ex-citadel models?

Saturday, 20 April 2013

Dan and I made the annual pilgrimage to Salute in the ExCel Centre primarily to invest in armies for a new game system. In the end we choose Saga and two Gripping Beast Warbands; Anglo Danish for me and the Jomsvikings for Dan - who loved the war dogs that came with the box set, and memories of the crushing injuries he inflicted with Mange during our Realm of Chaos campaign sprang to mind.

But such discussions are for another blog.

I also love the SELWG Bring and Buy Sale. Searching through this mass of humanity and war gaming paraphernalia is an absolute joy for a committed leadhead like myself, so into the scrum I ventured to emerge with this.

Starting on the right, two packs of ex-Citadel feudal knights (thanks Marcus!), two carrion, twelve mummies, four witch elves, twelve beastmen, four barbarians and an orc drummer. Nice!

Here's a couple of close ups!

It was a great show, certainly the best yet! And thanks to those of you who stopped Dan and I to talk about this blog, its uncanny how an Oldhammer T Shirt attracts fellow leadheads to the cause.

So then dear readers. Any of you attend the show? Anyone else manage to capture some vintage lead at next to nothing?

Thursday, 18 April 2013

I have been intrigued by other members of the Movement and their success with job lots on eBay. Now you may be wondering what I mean by this. I am sure that many of you are aware of the impressive haul that Stone Cold Lead made over at the Bloodforum, if not, have a quick read of this thread http://bloodforum.treps.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=489 and cry with envy.

Suitably inspired, Orlygg thought that he would have a go, so I typed in Warhammer job lot into eBay's search engine and trawled through the piles of space marine clippings to find some choice lots. Now I wanted to test the theory of getting quite a bit of Old School goodness for a small price, with a little help from the leadhead's guardian angel of the poorly listed lot. In the end, I ended up paying £3.66, including P&P for this little lot.

Thirty five 80s Citadel shields are not to be sniffed at, even at the price I paid, especially elf shields. But I also found that I now owned three more Dark Future guns, very useful for my Road Warriors project once I begin it again in the future. And then there was the RT pistol, which I do not have an example of, and a few old SM parts. It was the three miniatures that caught my interest the most. An RT Orc, and a very characterful one too, a plastic psychostyrene dwarf and a Citadel ninja circa 1985. I reckon I could easily double my money cleaning up and relisting the metal models, not that I would of course.

So what do others think? Have I just exhibited beginner's luck and am I now doomed to buy crap from eBay in the foreseeable future, or is there lead in them eBay hills?

And dear reader, do you have any tales of job lot luck, or indeed disaster, that you can share with your fellow old school addicts?

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

The ever knowledgeable Steve Casey (or Bridgend Steve, if you are that way inclined) has written a wonderful little article about the first Golden Demon awards over on his new blog, Eldritch Epistles, and includes some more recent photographs of one of the winning pieces, the Chalice of Doom, which now forms part of Bryan Ansell's astonishing miniature collection. Steve has gone on to produce for us some very good quality scans of the original article (a real bonus for me, as my copy of the White Dwarf it first appeared in is rather blurry) and these offer a real wealth of inspiration for we old school painters and gamers.

Steve's passion for the subject reminded me of a series of posts I made about the excellent Fantasy Miniatures books way back at the early days of the Oldhammer Movement and I thought that more recent readers would like to have a look at these, as they are packed with wonderful ideas. Below you will find embedded versions of each of the books in the order that they were originally published. Additionally, I will include links to the original posts I made quite a while ago concerning these wonderful publications. Steve promises to cover these books in more detail in the future, so hopefully he has some other scoops for us to drool over shortly!

Sunday, 14 April 2013

Hello all, just a quick update to share with you what I got finished this weekend. Yes, I am still working on the Khorne army and have finally stopped tinkering with Slambo. I've finished another two marauders and started work on the thug unit.

What do you think of my efforts?

I had to abandon my idea for a standard bearer as the model was so decayed that it did not stand up well to painting. So I have started another chaos warrior to take his place. I have plans to do an army standard and a tutorial about painting banners in the near future.

Friday, 12 April 2013

Today's post sees us delve back into the essential Oldhammer reference book, Heroes for Wargames for one final time. Now most of us love dioramas though few of us have the skill and patience to produce one. The Oldhammer Movement has yet to capitalise on the concept though I expect it's only a matter of time until we see one or two emerge, hopefully in the style of those presented below. I have selected two of my favourite dioramas from the book, both of which I have never seen online before.

Here goes...

I am not sure who, or whom, is responsible for this battle scene but isn't it impressive? I love the way the colours all merge into each other so it seems that you are looking not at a miniatures display, but an oil painting by some old master. Now if I was to put money on those behind this model, I'd say the Perry's. What do you think? The buildings are also evocative and really remind me of the more recent plastic Fortified Manor, so perhaps Dave Andrews had a hand in this one too. Anyone know for sure?

Next , we have a box diorama by Colin Dixon. Loads of classic sculpts in this one too. I always loved the ambient storytelling that goes into displays like these. You find yourself inventing your own stories as you study the piece.

As regular readers will know, I have just come into the possession of Heroes for Wargames, a seminal publication from 1986, that focused on the rising popularity of fantasy wargaming, painting and modelling. The publication is packed with loads of stuff that will be of interest to the Oldhammer enthusiast; interviews, pictures of miniatures, dioramas and much, much more.

One of the things I found most interesting was the 'behind the scenes' photographs that the book contains. They give us a glimpse of what the studio looked like in the mid 80s. You get a sense of just how relaxed and creative the studio was at this time. The images also contain some fascinating detail going on in the background. It's quite rewarding to try and work out what the Citadel stalwarts are working on in any particular picture. I have a few theories... Have a squint and see if you agree or disagree with me.

This first image shows Aly Morrison working at his desk. I love the pile of lead lying in that cardboard box on the left, which reminds me of what Andy Craig told us how members of the studio having piles of miniatures several feet deep. Have a quick glance around his desk. Anyone recognise the sculpt stuck on a cork next to the lead pile? I wonder what he is doing to those bases? Filling in the slit or something more creative, any ideas?

Here we have Colin Dixon, the original Citadel figure painter, working at his desk. Anyone recognise that building from any of his many dioramas? If you look at what he is painting, and this is easier if you own a copy of the book, you can just make out the Heroic Fighters of the Known World models being worked on. He's even got the original artwork from the box next to him for reference!

I believe that these are the very miniatures that Dixon is working on in the photograph above.

What the original painting above would later look like as packaging.

And here we have the mighty John Blanche, though I am not sure who is watching him work over his shoulder, though Trish Morrison and Jes Goodwin are visible in the background. Here we can see Blanche busy working with an airbrush on a new piece of art. The piece, which is only in its early stages, could well be the famous painting of a mounted dwarf and ogre champion that was later used as the cover of Dwarf Wars published by Flame.

What do you eagle eyed readers think?

The finished product. This is the painting that I believe that John Blanche was working on the the photograph above was taken.

Looking like he has just stepped off the set of a Wham! video shhot, Goodwin is snapped at his desk working on what he does best, sculpting miniatures. A surprisingly spartan desk compared to many of the others, but if you look closely you can see some greens being worked up on the table before him. Is it just me, or could the green closest to his hand (the one facing forwards with two diagonal brass rods sticking out sideways) be a WIP Slambo, the chaos warrior of chaos warriors?

Here's a WIP shot of my Slambo. Could the original green be on the desk in the photograph above?

The next bench along looks the complete opposite. A cluttered mess, a sure hallmark of the genius at work? Here we have Bob Naismith at work creating models his way. Across that desk is cluttered a vast array of bits and pieces and all kids of modelling apparatus. I am sure that this is a picture we can all relate to, eh?

And finally, here we have Tony Ackland enjoying a ciggie whilst working on another evocative picture at his desk. A shed load of reference material causes the shelves behind to groan under the pressure of inspiration itself while what look like images from Runequest are pinned nicely on the wall behind him. But what is he working on? Could it just be the illustration use in Slave to Darkness to introduce the pantheon of Khorne?